Monday 9.22.08


We examined three of the better sample leads from "Letters to the Next President" project.

First we reviewed the thre responsibilities of the lead. (Hook the reader, provide an overview of the issue at hand, and state your thesis)
Next we reviewed the five types of leads.
Each class member chose the lead that they felt was most effective and wrote the reasons for their selections.

We then rewrote the lead making it worse in order to make it better.

Tuesday 9.23.08


We examined another sample lead for the project again writing it worse and then writing it better.

We identified several aspects of the writing that we changed to make the writing less effective:

  • Irrelevant details and info.
  • No sense of audience
  • No thesis or focus
  • Misinformation
*

We also identified several characteristics of good writing including:

  • Specific and relevant details
  • Voice
  • Attention to audience

Wednesday, 9.24.08

Today we focused on the Catcher in the Rye. We finished chapter four and then worked on locating the following info. on our hero Holden.

5--Physical Traits
5--Favorite Expressions
5--Contradictions in Holden's life
5--Pet peeves
2--Favorite Quotations

Keep this list in your discussion notes.

Thursday, 9.25.08

Today we watched a news report from an Indianapolis school district involved in the NWP Letters to the Next president program. Pretty cool, check it out here

We then edited the editing sheet for typos and proceeded to peer review our leads. Find your voice people!